There's an interesting set of posts from PHP community members Adam Culp and Cal Evans each on a similar subject centering around conferences and the presentations made at them. They both wonder if talks are getting too "soft" and not focusing as much on the technology and getting in-depth as they should be. From Cal:

PHP conferences are changing very slowly, and not in a way that I like. I blame myself. As a frequent speaker I am getting lazy. I get caught up in the excitement of the CfP, I write up 5-10 abstracts and shotgun them into the CfP system hoping that something hits the mark. I've not actually written these talks. In most cases, I'm pretty sure I can get 45 minutes on the topic, but I don't know for sure because I've not bothered to write it yet. Adam Culp talks about this very thing in his post "Are Conference Talks Getting Too Soft?".

Adam points out that, while introductory talks and overviews are acceptable level coverage for someone new to the speaking scene (or development), the trend seems to be that everyone is providing less "meat" in their talks.

It is hard to teach a great amount in a 1 hour talk, but if there is not some immediately usable content an attendee will have a tough time proving to their short sighted boss that it was worth their time.

Both Adam and Cal set out a challenge, both to themselves and other speakers in the community. They encourage you to spend more time with your subjects, get in-depth into the topics, present on what you're excited about and maybe even try them out locally first.

The Voices of the ElePHPant podcast has posted the latest in their special conference-recorded "It's the Booze Talking" series of episodes (this time it was at ZendCon 2014). In this new episodeCal Evans talks with guests Jeremy Mikola, Mike Stowe, Derick Rethans and Beth Tucker-Long.

They discuss the life of a developer evangelist including travel experiences, what it's like working conferences, and how it has an impact on their family life. They also all share their worst travel story in the course of their work and what they really enjoy about their roles.

The Acquia podcast has released a special episode today spotlighting a video interview with Voices of the ElePHPant host Cal Evans and Jeffrey (jam) McGuire of the Drupal community. They decided to do a joint podcast, combining the Acquia and Voices of the ElePHPant podcast, giving you a look behind the scenes at Cal himself.

They talk about how Cal became involved in open source, how he discovered Drupal specifically, his involvement in the PHP community as a whole and where he works/what he currently does. They also talk about why Cal thinks PHP is such a success and his own "virtual user group" project, NomadPHP.

Most of the PHP I write these days is CLI scripts. I really wanted to be able to trap signals in some of my scripts. I struggled with this for a while; I even spent an entire weekend googling and reading only to find out that most of the information out there was either wrong, confusing, or incomplete. I decided that once I figured it out, I was going to put everything I learned together in one place to help others that were struggling with this topic as well.

The eBook is available for purchase and download now at a suggested price of only $5 USD. If you've been looking for a quick, concise guide to using process control in PHP, you should check it out.

The first episode of a new PHP-related podcast, the "PHP Podcast" produced by Zend, has been released. This first episode, hosted by Joe Stagner features a well-known PHPer, Cal Evans.

Cal Evans has been referred to as "The Ubiquitous Face of the PHP Community". That's made Cal an obvious choice for the first guest on the PHPPodcast. In this episode we chat about the evolving face of the PHP community.

The Nashville PHP User Group has started up an interesting new series - the first in a (hopefully continuing) video series, the NashvillePHP Podcast 101. In this video, they interview Jon Wage, Director of Technology at OpenSky.

Cal Evans and Jacques Woodcock sit down with Jon Wage, Director of Technology at OpenSky, and chat about classic first person shooters that got him started in PHP, as well as, a bit about the OpenSky stack.

You can watch the interview over on Vimeo. Be sure to give them some feedback about the video in the comments!

On 7php.com today there's a new interview with a well-known member of the PHP community - Cal Evans:

In this edition I talked with Cal Evans, the Icon Of The PHP Community. He is to the PHP Community what Pele is to the Football world, just to tell you about the influence he has on the PHP world. He shares, helps, mentors, propagates PHP wherever and as much as he cans. He was previously Chief editor of Zend Technologies (@Zend), worked for iBuildings (@ibuildings) one of the biggest PHP service companies in Europe where he lead the growth of a PHP Center of Expertise and ex Mister ZendCon (@zendcon).

In a new post to the Zend Developer Zone, there's an announcement from Cal Evans about his temporary return to Zend's Developer Zone site and provide it with some great content.

For the next few months Blue Parabola will be helping out by managing DevZone. We will continue the 5 year tradition of finding great PHP related content from around the Net and making sure you have access to it. Along the way we may even write some new articles and tutorials. So come back often. See what, Marco, Keith, Beth and I find and share with you.

Keep an eye on the Zend Developer Zone for some great content from this group. You can also check out some of their other efforts over on the php|architect site.